Israel: Thousands of jellyfish clog up cooling system of Rutenberg power station [Video]

Israel: Thousands of jellyfish clog up cooling system of Rutenberg power stationIBTimes UK

A power station in Israel almost faced shutting down after thousands of jellyfish were found clogging up the plant's cooling system.

Workers at the Rutenberg power station in the southern city of Ashkelon struggled to remove the huge swarm of jellyfish that were overflowing into the site but after several hours, they managed to successfully clean up the system, according to the Israel Electric Corporation.

Workets struggled to clear the vast swarm of jellyfish at the power station(Reuters)

Rutenberg is a coal-powered power plant based along the coast that uses vast amounts of seawater from the Mediterranean to cool its system. A recent increase of jellyfish along Israel's beaches had led to more of the slimy sea creatures to be sucked up into the power station, the company said.

This is not the first time jellyfish have caused problems to power stations. In 2013, a large bloom of jellyfish forced Sweden's Oskarshamn nuclear plant to shut down, while in 2012 the Diablo Canyon power plant in California shut down for the same reason.